Bhairavi represents Divine anger and
wrath. Yet her wrath is directed toward the impurities within us,
as well as to the negative forces that may try to interfere with our spiritual
growth. Though a difficult force to bear, her activity is necessary
both to guide and to protect us. Bhairavi is the proverbial wrath
of a woman and more specifically the wrath of a mother toward whatever
may threaten her children.
Bhairavi represents the supreme power
of speech, which has the nature of fire (Tejas). She is the Word
in its unarticulated and primal form as raw energy, the flaming word which
appears like a pillar or a sword to remove all opposition. She is
the supreme light and heat power, the flame of consciousness itself (Cidagni)
which is the ultimate knowledge of truth. Bhairavi as Tejas (radiance)
rules over the Tanmatras, the subtle sensory potentials behind the five
elements and five sense organs which allow for their inter-connection.
Through the Tanmatras Bhairavi gives power over the senses and the elements.
She is the basic will power of life, mastering which we come to control
all of its manifestations.
Bhairavi is known as Durga, the Goddess
who saves us from difficulties. Durga rides a lion, a symbol of fire or solar energy,
from which she wields her weapons of light to destroy all demons or negative
forces. She helps take us beyond disease, sorrow, darkness and death.
The fierce form of Divine energy exists
within us as the power of transforming heat (Tapas). Tapas is sometimes
translated as asceticism. More properly it is a heightened aspiration
that consumes all secondary interests and attachments. When we are
really interested in something we naturally lose our attraction to other
things. Tapas is this real interest and profound absorption in the
spiritual life that causes us to no longer want anything else. Tapas
is the heat of spiritual inquiry and aspiration which causes us to discard
all that is non-essential in life.
Bhairavi as Tapas is especially worshipped
by those seeking knowledge or by those seeking control of their sexual
energy (Brahmacharya). She gives control of the senses, the emotions
and wandering thoughts. She helps us during fasting, vows of silence,
meditation retreats, Pilgrimages, during the practice of celibacy, or any
other concentrated spiritual discipline (Tapas) that we may be attempting.
Whatever obstructions arise to our practice of Tapas we can call on Bhairavi
to help eliminate them.
Bhairavi is the fierce form of the Goddess
and related to Chandi, the fiercest form of the Goddess, who is the main
deity of the famous Devi Mahatmya, a great poem of seven hundred verses
(also called Durga Saptasati or Chandi) which celebrates the destruction
of the demons by her. Bhairavi is the woman as warrior, who with
her power of Divine speech and spiritual fire eliminates all obstacles
to the unfoldment of true awareness. As Chandi or the destroyer of
opposition, she can be invoked for removing obstacles to allow us
to attain any of the four goals of life – enjoyment, wealth, recognition
or liberation (kama, artha, dharma and moksha).
Another important form of Durga is the
ten-armed Mahishasura Mardini, the destroyer of Mahishasura, the demon
who represents the vital passions (particularly sexual desires), which
tie us to the outer world. She is also a form of Bhairavi.
Bhairavi possesses the effulgence of
a thousand rising suns. She has three eyes and wears a jeweled crown
with the crest of the moon. Her lotus face is happy and smiling.
She wears a red garment (generally made of silk), her breasts are smeared
with blood, and she is adorned with a garland of severed human heads.
She has four hands and carries a rosary and a book. She makes the
gestures of knowledge and that for giving boons with the other two hands.
